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Enquiries

How to read a cargo enquiry

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A cargo enquiry is the opposite of the tonnage circular. The circular lists ships looking for cargo. The enquiry describes a cargo looking for a ship. Someone needs to move a quantity of cargo between two places within a window of dates. They are asking the market what it would cost. Every line of the enquiry limits which ships you can offer.

One enquiry, in full

This is a realistic dry cargo enquiry. The figures are examples, and market numbers change. The layout does not.

CHTRS : FIRST CLASS RECEIVERS, FULL STYLE ON FIRM
55,000 MT 10 PCT MOLOO BULK WHEAT, SF ABT 48
1 SB ECSA (SANTOS / PARANAGUA / SAN LORENZO IN CHOPT)
1-2 SB CHINA (QINGDAO / RIZHAO IN CHOPT)
LAYCAN 12/20 SEP
FIOST BENDS
12,000 MT PWWD SSHINC LOAD / 8,000 MT PWWD SSHINC DISCH
DEM USD 22,000 PDPR / DES HALF DEM BENDS
FRT IDEA OWS BEST
MAX 15 YRS, GEARLESS ACCEPTABLE

In ten lines, the enquiry says what cargo moves, how much, from where to where and when, who pays for handling it, how fast it must be loaded and unloaded, what delay costs, and who is behind the cargo. If any line is missing, you must ask about it before you can offer a ship.

The fields, and what each asks of your tonnage

LineReadsWhat it decides
AccountFIRST CLASS RECEIVERS Whose cargo it is. This field is the one most often made vague. It tells you whether you have already seen this cargo today.
Quantity55,000 MT 10 PCT MOLOO A range, not one number. It decides which ships fit.
Stowage factorSF ABT 48 How much space one tonne of cargo takes. It shows whether the holds fill up before the ship reaches its weight limit.
Load1 SB ECSA One safe berth, somewhere on a stretch of coast, not at a named terminal.
Discharge1-2 SB CHINA Up to two berths. The charterer names them later.
Laycan12/20 SEP The window of dates in which the ship must arrive ready to load. This is the hardest limit here.
TermsFIOST BENDS Who pays to load, stow, trim and discharge the cargo, at both ends.
Laytime12,000 MT PWWD SSHINC How fast the cargo must be loaded or unloaded, as a daily rate.
DemurrageUSD 22,000 PDPR What the charterer pays per day if the ship is kept longer than the laytime allows.
FreightFRT IDEA OWS BEST No price is given, so they want you to make an offer.
CriteriaMAX 15 YRS, GEARLESS ACCEPTABLE An age limit, and a note that the ship does not need its own cranes.

Quantity, and why the tolerance decides fit

MOLOO means "more or less in owner's option". The two common figures are 5 and 10 per cent. The owner chooses the exact quantity within that band, usually a fixed number of days before the laydays (the first day loading may start). MOLCO or MOLCHOPT gives the same choice to the charterer. Some enquiries do not use a tolerance. They write a fixed minimum and maximum instead, such as min 50,000 / max 55,000. That is a completely different instruction.

This choice exists because nobody knows the exact figure until close to the laydays. Fuel, fresh water, stores and the ship's constants (fixed weights on board) all use up part of the deadweight (the total weight the ship can carry). The water depth at the load port can reduce the cargo again. Whoever holds the choice takes on that uncertainty. The other side puts a price on it.

For a broker, the tolerance turns one number into a search. Fifty-five thousand tonnes at 10 per cent MOLOO means the ship must carry between 49,500 and 60,500 tonnes. So a ship of 53,000 dwt and a ship of 58,000 dwt can both be offered. If the enquiry said min 55,000, the smaller ship would be out from the start. If you search only for the headline number, you find almost nothing. Offering a ship on deadweight alone is worse. Deadweight is not the same as the cargo the ship can take. With a stowage factor of 48, some ships will fill their holds before they reach their weight limit.

A range widens the field, and somebody pays for it

Neither the load line nor the discharge line names a berth. ECSA means East Coast South America, a stretch of coast, and the ports in brackets are the choices the charterer may name later, which is what CHOPT (charterer's option) means. 1 SB is one safe berth, 1 SP is one safe port, and 1-2 SB allows a second discharge berth. Ranges have their own names, such as USG, NOPAC, the Continent, the Med, WCI and ECI, and Arabian Gulf, and none of them can be looked up as a single place.

21,356

Ports in the register, across 218 countries. A range is none of them and dozens of them at the same time. So you cannot turn an enquiry into a berth by looking it up. The distance, the water depth and the empty voyage to the load port remain a matter of judgement.

Two things follow, and they have opposite effects. A wide range opens the cargo to many more ships, because any ship that can reach any port in the range can be offered. But the choice also has a price. An owner quoting for three ports at the charterer's choice must price the worst of the three. Which effect is stronger depends on how many ships are available. The reading stays the same. A wide range means you probably have a ship for it. A single named berth means you should first check its water depth, its length limit and its air draught (height limit).

Laycan, terms and time

Laycan is short for laydays and cancelling. The first date is the earliest day the ship may give notice that it is ready. The second date is the day the charterer may cancel if the ship has not arrived ready. If a ship's open window ends before the laydays begin, you cannot offer it, however well it fits otherwise. The narrower the window, the fewer owners will commit.

FIOST means free in, out, stowed and trimmed. The charterer pays for loading, stowing, trimming and discharging. The freight pays only for the sea voyage. Under liner terms or gross terms, the owner pays the stevedores (dock workers) at that end and adds the cost to the freight. Because the owner then controls the speed of work, laytime and demurrage may not apply there. Charterparties differ, and the one in front of you decides. So a liner-terms freight and a FIOST freight cannot be compared directly. Treating them as if they could is expensive.

The laytime line is a rate, not a length of time. 12,000 MT PWWD SSHINC means twelve thousand tonnes per weather working day, with Saturdays, Sundays and holidays included. SHEX means those days are excluded, and EIU (even if used) and UU (unless used) decide whether excluded time counts when work is done in it anyway. Dividing the cargo by the rate, this enquiry allows about four and a half days to load and just under seven to discharge. The two allowances can be added together into one pool (reversible laytime) or counted separately, and that choice changes who owes money to whom.

Demurrage at USD 22,000 PDPR means per day, pro rata (part days paid in proportion). DES HALF DEM means despatch at half that rate for time saved. Some trades pay no despatch at all. Together these two lines set the time risk. If the named ports cannot reach the discharge rate, demurrage will be due. That is fair if the rate is realistic, and leads to a dispute if it is not.

The freight idea

FRT IDEA OWS BEST gives no price. They want you to make an offer. A named freight idea is a starting point. It tells you what the chain of brokers thinks the market is. That is worth knowing even when it is wrong. Freight is quoted per tonne, or as a lump sum for the whole cargo. The terms line decides whether you can compare one per-tonne figure with another at all.

An enquiry is not an offer

Nothing in the enquiry binds anyone. An enquiry says a cargo exists and invites rough indications. A firm offer is different. It names the parties in full, gives a time limit, and has terms that can be accepted. Until then, you are only being asked for your view, and so is everyone else. The same enquiry usually goes to many brokers at once, and sometimes to the whole market. No exclusive right is given, and none is implied.

That is why the same cargo can arrive three times through three chains in one morning. It is reworded at each step, and the laycan or the quantity becomes a little vague along the way. If you offer the same ship into two of those chains, the owner appears twice to one charterer at two different prices. That usually loses the fixture and starts a dispute over commission. So your first job on an enquiry is not to price it. It is to find out whose cargo it is. When the account is hidden, you can find duplicates in the details that brokers usually do not reword: the stowage factor and quantity together, the exact laycan, the discharge options and the demurrage figure.

What makes one answerable

An answerable enquiry lets you go to an owner without asking a question first. It has the cargo and quantity with its tolerance, the load and discharge places with the options named, a laycan, the terms, a laytime rate at each end, a demurrage figure, and enough about the account to know who you work for. That can be as little as "first class receivers, full style on firm", which means the full name will be given with a firm offer. The two items most often missing are the account and the demurrage rate. They are also the two an owner asks for first.

When you cannot answer an enquiry, the missing information is rarely about the cargo. It is usually about the chain of brokers it came through.

If you are the cargo owner writing the enquiry, how to charter a ship for your cargo explains what comes next. You can also post a cargo to owners and brokers directly.

The next step is to compare these requirements with suitable ships and their open positions. That is the practical work of matching a cargo to a ship.

For desks that do this work often, a shipbroking platform can connect cargo enquiries, ship search and fixtures in one workflow.

References

How to read a tonnage circularThe open-tonnage e-mail: its fields, the short forms added to each line, and why the ship's name is the hard part. Laycan: laydays and cancellingTwo dates with opposite jobs: the earliest date a charterer must accept the ship, and the latest date after which they may refuse it. Chartering terms and abbreviations, A to Z177 chartering terms and short forms from a circular, an enquiry and a recap, each expanded and defined in a sentence or two. Matching a cargo to a shipOne cargo, five open ships and one real candidate. Which checks are simple arithmetic, which are judgement, and why the shortlist is short. Firm offers, counters and subjectsAn indication costs nothing, a firm offer holds the ship, and a fixture on subs is not yet a fixture. The steps from enquiry to clean fixture.

Neptune Atlas

Neptune Atlas keeps a cargo enquiry as a record, not as an e-mail. It holds the quantity with its tolerance, the load and discharge ranges, the laycan, the terms and the account, and searches them against the positions the desk has on file. The account is its own field. So when the same cargo arrives through three chains, it shows as three enquiries for one charterer, not three unrelated jobs. Every paid plan starts with 7 free days. A card is needed to start them, and cancelling before they end costs nothing.

Try 7 days free Ship chartering software for brokers What each plan includes